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I am struggling with finding anything positive about myself.

TayRus12

Lately, I am having such massive depressive episodes, mainly just with me feeling like a failure or that i keep screwing everything I do up. I've been like this for years, even before i was diagnosed with Asperger's. In school, the kids would always point out that i messed up or that i didn't do something the right way. Then i would see my parents, siblings or friends do things either the right way or perfectly and they would be praised.

It was like this for years, and it's gotten to a point to where I legit can't think of a nice thing to say about myself. Even when someone would try to say a nice to me, I'd just say something like "I did alright." or "It wasn't a big deal." My therapist even told me to write down one thing I like about myself everyday, but I cannot think of 1 thing to write. i can't even say "I love myself." and mean it. I recently accepted a lot of things about myself, like being gay, but I still can't find anything positive to say about myself.

I want to change this mindset, but it feels like it is set in stone. Am I a lost cause?

  • Hi 

    I’m sorry to hear you feel this way.

    You are a unique individual who deserves love and respect for just being yourself. You don’t have to achieve anything or do everything right it’s the essence of your being, your soul that matters most and you sound perfectly lovable to me, the fact that you’re questioning yourself this way and trying to get things right shows how much you really care about people.

    You are not a lost cause you are just a little bit lost in the world. I think your therapist is trying to help you see the real you, try to really accept that.

    Wishing you well on your journey of healing Cherry blossom

  • Maybe have a break from the focus on your self worth and abilities? Maybe turn your focus to what’s around you - with mindfulness techniques and grounding techniques? What these do is help to stop the constant ruminating and constant thinking about ourselves and our inner life - and help us to look outward - and appreciate the simple things around us - such as sounds, the light in the trees, the taste of food etc. I find it really helpful to do this - it stops me going down that rabbit hole of self hatred and self doubt. Some people use meditation- which is great for many people - but mindfulness techniques are a bit less intimidating and really work. It does take time though - the more you do these sort of practices the more helpful they are. But gradually over time they can be very freeing and bring a lot of peace mentally. 
    In terms of ‘saying a nice thing about yourself’ - you don’t need to justify your place on this earth, you don’t have to prove yourself. Being human is not easy - so just surviving (especially when you have autism etc) is no small achievement. The Dalai Lama said: we should try to do good deeds, but if we can’t - just not causing harm is also good. I’m guessing that you’re not going round being horrible to people or being abusive and aggressive to people? That’s doing good to not do harm. That’s something to feel proud of. You really are ok, there’s no reason to be so hard on yourself - be kind to yourself instead :) 

  • Perhaps you are too busy comparing yourself to others.

    Try to stop comparing. If you were in a room of people like you what would you want to tell them?

    It is not nothing to have made it this far. It is not nothing to have survived whatever struggles you have 

    If you do things differently, perhaps it is not wrong really.

    Look at some art. Picasso didn't paint like others. There are other examples of different thinking being a strength. 

    What moves you may move others.

  • You're not alone. I often feel like I'm sub-par compared to nuerotypicals a lot of the time as well. You're not a lost cause.

    I'm not gay specifically, but I do suffer from gender dysphoria, I do sometimes struggle to accept that I am transgender, but I know that it's true, at least...

  • Good morning from America again, TayRus12!

    TayRus12 said:
    I recently accepted a lot of things about myself, like being gay

    Whoa! That’s really huge, though! You gotta realize that’s not a small thing to accept your own sexual/gender identity when you are not straight or cis gender. If anything, your own acceptance is a strength in and of itself.

    So no, if you can make that positive step forward, I absolutely don’t think you are a lost cause.

  • No I don't think you're a lost cause, but you do need to look at your life through a different lens. 

    I grew up being constantly criticised, often for really stupid random things that I had no control of, like living in a bungalow instead of a house, my child self felt these criticisms deeply and looking back on it now I still feel a bit hurt for the child I was and angry that the other kids were so judgemental, but in reality I guess they were doing what all children do and pointing out differences they saw.

    I think the turning point for me was having always been terrible at maths ,constantly failing and being told off for being stupid, was when we had to do some long sum and put how we'd worked out the answer down too. I got marked down even though I had the right answer because I'd ot worked it out "properly". Where there were lots of nines I added them as tens then minussed the extra ones, this was wrong and a lazy way to do it, I was confused and angry then and just gave up. So you can imagine how I felt when I found out that Einstein and Richard Feynman both did calculations like this, if it was good enough for two Nobel Prize winners then why wasn't it good enough for me? These teachers were idiots!

  • Hi and welcome. I'm sorry to hear how you are feeling.

    Autistic people have many positive traits, but maybe you're overlooking them. Here is a link to an article about autistic strengths, hopefully you will recognise some of these:

    https://www.simplypsychology.org/autistic-strengths.html